


A Spell To Bind

by samsnow



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:50:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samsnow/pseuds/samsnow





	A Spell To Bind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eisoj5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/gifts).



_On the night of a full moon, gather three red leaves and lay them in a triangle on a flat surface._

"I'm guessing the full moon thing is non-optional, huh?" she asks as they near the grocery store, the spell tightly tucked between her fingers.

Crane stays silent.

"So we have tonight, and that's it."

"Indeed," he says calmly.

 _Great_ , she doesn't say. She's been walking fast, but she hurries up her steps to keep up with him. She can't help a side glance. He's always looked comically out of place in the light of day, but at night it's like he takes on a new aura. In the dark, it feels as though he's a part of the fabric of the world; something ardent and dense and dented, like a lost memory. She tries not to think of how unsettled and out of this world he makes _her_ feel.

Around them, the parking lot is half empty. A stray strand of his long hair undulates in his trail. He doesn't look as calm as he sounds.

"Look, I know this is all new to you, but just follow me and do as I say, okay?"

"This may shock you, but we had marketplaces in my day, Miss Mills," he says, and she can hear the slight smile in his tone.

She doesn't feel like arguing. They only have one hour left before the store closes, and if they're not able to do the spell by tonight, the world ends. Maybe. Their informant was as adamant that the curse would come true as he was vague on the how.

Crane startles when the glass doors slide open, and Abbie makes no effort to hide her smirk. He glares at her and quickly regains his composure. He seems so disappointed when she says they don't really need a cart, however, that she grabs one anyways, and gives another look at the list. It isn't fall, so they will have to do without the red leaves.

"Not to worry," says Crane, briefly massaging his right shoulder. Abbie wonders if he feels as sore as she does right now. "The leaves are meant to keep the fragrance that will be poured onto them; the red is merely for decorum. All we need is to find an item that can easily absorb lavender oil."

She leaves him in the toiletries section with the mission to find cotton pads, and tries not to lose her calm looking for the damn lavender oil. It's not like they can try their luck anywhere else; this is the only store left open in that time of the night.

When she goes back to Crane empty-handed, she refrains from commenting on the box of tampons he gently places in the middle of the cart.

 

_Place a few drops of lavender oil on each leaf._

"This will have to do."

He can feel her patience leaving her irked breath by irked breath. Her short sharp steps echo throughout the aisles. They have been running about for rather long and tedious minutes now, and Ichabod feels dizzy from the aggressive white lights reflected in the beige tiles and metal shelves. He is having trouble adjusting to the sheer deluge of sounds, all merging and echoing and merging again, trapped into this giant, windowless room. Even the items themselves seem to be yelling, splashed with obnoxiously bright colors and sprinkled with overly enthusiastic exclamation points. He supposes the music that has been following them everywhere is somewhat soothing, but at the moment it rather feels like a sarcastic chorus commenting on the doomed nature of their endeavor.

It appears the store has run out of lavender oil. He picks up the item Miss Mills has just thrown into the cart in its stead. Its bright purple exterior is quite the assault to his eyes, and he has to blink a few times before he can make out the words among the lavender flower paintings.

"Detergent," he reads, and throws her an inquisitive glance.

"It's for washing clothes," she explains.

"Oh," he says, and puts it back down.

A brief glance at the state of his boots has him wincing. Miss Mills' own shoes are just as dirty, and her pants are ripped at the knee, which he quickly averts his eyes from. Underneath her leather jacket, he knows there is very little of her shirt that is still white. If his own coat were not so dark, one could see the muck, the blood and the mud painted all over it.

 

_In the center, place an already lighted candle._

"Only half an hour left."

They're on their way to find a lighter. The list is lying crumpled in Abbie's left palm; her grip on the cart handle tense and tight. She's just wrestled it back from Crane, who, after a while had been so insistent on taking her place ("Surely this is not woman's work, Miss Mills") that she'd let him have it. They had no time for arguments, after all.

After running the thing into three unsuspecting shoppers, including a rather vindictive old lady, and knocking down a display of canned tomato soup, he handed back the cart to her with an injured toe and a chagrined expression.

To her slight annoyance, he is more impressed with the variety of scented candles than he is with the lighter, and she has to bodily stop him from smelling every one of them as though he were smelling flowers by the side of the road.

"Crane, I don't mean to be rude, but in case you just forgot, the world is ending right about now."

"So it is. I am sorry, Lieutenant. We will take this Berrylicious one," he announces gravely.

She sighs as he places it in the cart. If she's honest with herself, this feels like a very anticlimactic end of the world. There's no fanfare to it, and no real sense of danger either. She watches around her. To her left, a young man with a red beanie has been staring at the same set of candles for a few minutes. A focused-looking lady is going through the aisle small step by small step, her child sat at the back of her cart. She's dropping an impressive amount of items in it, all of which are systematically picked up and placed back on the shelves by the child. It's hard to imagine all this could disappear in a matter of minutes.

"Crane?"

He turns slightly startled eyes towards her, as though he too was lost in his thoughts.

"Yes, Miss Mills?"

"There's something I don't understand. Why is this spell so simple that two people like you and I can actually cast it? How can such a devastating curse be undone so easily?"

He runs his palm against his neck, and thinks for a few seconds.

"Because it is a binding spell. With such spells, the words whispered are the only aspect that truly matters. And these words," he says, his hand caressing the coat pocket in which he put the thin sheet of paper, "were painfully crafted, meticulously arranged, the result of centuries of research."

"Binding spell, though? What are we binding?"

 "The curse, to this town. We have to give substance to the curse in order to fully get rid of its effects. We're saying this place, this time and age, is the world. Sleepy Hollow is our world."

So it is, she thinks. She knows there's a vaster world out there, but this town always feels like its own little universe, like it exists in the middle of nowhere.

"I get it," she says. _Now is my world_ , she adds in her head, and she rolls the crumpled list in her palm as he fumbles for the paper in his pocket.

 

 _Whisper the incantation thrice_.

He stands guard at the end of a small transversal aisle in the back while she lays out their material on the floor. He can barely take his eyes off the entrance doors sliding open and shut and open and shut, the night swallowing up the last leaving customers. He can hear Abbie rummaging through their items. He wonders what they will find outside in a few minutes, when the doors open one last time for them both, but he knows they will walk side by side.

 

_Blow the light out._


End file.
